Bananas: a story of clones and colonization
Bananas are deeply ingrained in American culture and are available in nearly every grocery store around the world. They are often one of the cheapest fruits in the produce aisle and available year round, but it wasn’t always that way. Bananas are the 4th largest crop in the world, with production covering about 477,000 hectares globally and weighing up to 5.4 million metric tons annually, according to the FAO. While bananas are available everywhere, from Walmart to bodegas, their rise to produce-popularity and global dominance is an epic story of global trade, investment, plant breeding and colonization.
Identical Bananas Around the Globe
Despite their smooth texture, bananas actually do have small seeds inside, but they are commercially propagated through cuttings which means that all bananas are actually clones of each other. Banana fruits are parthenocarpic, which means that they don’t need to be pollinated to produce fruits. This allows them to be a crop with consistently high yields, with or without pollination and seed formation. But before domestication, most banana varieties produced large seeds in the middle of the fruit. Banana seeds are produced through fertilization of female flowers by male pollen, like most other plants, but they have been bred to be smaller over time because large seeds make them nearly inedible. The seeds are used for breeding programs and are sometimes viable, but usually have a low germination rate. This leads to the propagation of banana plants using plant material from rhizome (a specialized type of root) tissue. Tissue propagation is an effective method for creating identical plants that produce consistent fruit, something that is desirable for merchants around the world. The issue with this type of propagation is twofold: the tissues themselves can transport pests and diseases, and they create genetically identical clones that are more susceptible to diseases because they don’t have the genetic diversity that comes with sexual reproduction. In the natural world, or on smallholder farms, there is far more genetic diversity. Unfortunately the global market for bananas encourages homogeneity, which puts banana plants at risk of a complete wipe out. All banana species are susceptible to Bunchy top virus and nematodes, but individual varieties and cultivars have been found with more resistance to other viruses and bacteria that threaten yields.
The banana that we know today, is not actually the banana that many of our parents may recognize as children. In 1890, a disease spread throughout Latin America and the Caribbean and destroyed many banana farms. Research began in the early 1900s to develop a disease-resistant banana, which led to the introduction of the Cavendish banana. The Cavendish, is the big banana with a thick peel and small seeds that we all recognize in the grocery store. This variety also travels well and maintains a consistent texture, which makes it an appealing variety for consumers. Cavendish bananas currently make up 40% of banana production worldwide, and the majority of production for export to northern countries.
Unfortunately, as noted by the New York Times, “while genetically identical bananas that look and act alike are good for business...when one gets sick, they all get sick.” Like the mass-produced genetically identical bananas in 1890 that fell sick to disease, the Cavendish is threatened by the global spread of a fungal disease that may lead to us needing a “new” banana soon. Fusarium wilt of bananas, popularly known as “Panama disease”, is a lethal fungal disease caused by a soil-borne fungus that has spread globally. To truly understand the scale of the issues of cloning and the viability of bananas as a global crop, we highly recommend listening to the “Most Interesting Fruit in the World” podcast from Freakonomics.
The real people behind banana production
Bananas originated in Southeast Asia thousands of years ago and after a path to popularity via world fairs and massive capital investments, bananas now make up the 4th largest crop in the world. Most production in the banana's natural range goes to self consumption, while Southern and Central America primarily supply northern markets.
Banana plantations have been developed primarily along the Caribbean Coast of Central America where the high temperature, rainfall, and rich alluvial soil are ideal for large scale production. In some areas like the Department of Antioquia in Colombia, 70% of the area is planted with bananas, with approximately 84% of that area allocated for export to global markets, according to the FAO. Bananas are often grown in agroforestry (agriculture that incorporates the cultivation and conservation of trees for fruits or wood products) systems as a food crop along with coffee, but bananas for export are grown in large plantations.
We use the word “plantation” in this article because “plantation farming” is a term used to describe export-oriented specialised farming where emphasis is given to raise a single crop – specially meant for export to overseas countries. It is a large enterprise, where profit is the sole objective. It involves not only cultivation of the crop but also processing, transporting and export of the product. “Plantation” is often used to describe coffee, tea, and cocoa farms, because like bananas they are tropical crops with a huge export market for European and US markets. “Plantation” also refers to US farms that held Black Africans and Black Americans as slaves. This short article from National Geographic describes the plantation system in America as an instrument of British colonialism characterized by social and political inequality. Our words have power and we’d like to address the associations we all may have with this word and where they come from.
Bananas are grown as a monoculture at a massive scale in order to economize production for companies and create a uniform natural product for consumers, but this leads to neglect for the humans and the land involved in their production. The creation of banana plantations has led to massive deforestation and loss of biodiversity in extremely ecologically-rich areas of the world. Monocultures foster more pests and diseases, so they require more chemicals to grow, which can lead to the degradation of water sources for the ecosystems and humans who live in these areas. Bananas are one of the leading crops globally, and a big income source for countries that are often under-resourced. For this reason, some local governments are often willing to turn a blind eye to inhumane labor practices, environmental degradation, and land grabs because they are more interested in the wealth of their country.
Over time, banana production and exportation has shifted from just a handful of companies, to a more diverse mix of retailers and large companies. These companies are vertically integrated up the chain, meaning that they own and operate everything from the soil to the palate. Rather than buying from companies like Dole, del Monte, or Chiquita, grocery merchants have begun making their own contracts with plantation owners—read more about this here.
This has created a “race to the bottom” banana economy that drives prices down for northern consumers, but limits the benefits for those in the production companies. In many places, workers only early about 4-9% of the value of the bananas. Which means for the 1 lb of bananas that we buy at Wegmans for around 60 cents, the worker only gets about 3 cents. The transition to more and more companies bargaining for the banana market actually drives prices lower as merchants in northern countries compete with each other aside from the vertically integrated multinational companies.
But let's not feel bad for Dole and Chiquita for losing shares of the market. Even before this transition of market power away from these huge multinational companies, the working conditions for laborers in the banana industry was the subject of many civil rights campaigns. The history of human rights violations by fruit companies like Dole and Chiquita is notorious and truly horrible. Governments have been overthrown and manipulated to bow down to pressures from these powerful companies. There has been a lot of writing on this by people who are way more knowledgeable than us, so if you are interested, we highly recommend reading “Peeling Back the Truth on Bananas” from Food is Power. This piece covers the history of child labor, human rights violations, land use violations, and the loss of indigenous knowledge and skills due to the exploitative power and greed of fruit companies. There is also new information constantly uncovered about the violent history of these large companies in foreign countries and their relationship with government officials. Recently, Aljazeera reported on a US banana firm that hired Colombian paramilitaries to keep control of their workers. We'd recommend reading their reporting when you can.
In the early 2000s, both Dole and Chiquita made welcomed changes in the way that they work with unions and non-government organizations, which are slowly helping them improve their standing in the countries where they operate. This is important because while they are controlling a shrinking portion of the market, they still have big effects on labor and environmental standards for banana production. There is so much space for growth with these large companies in terms of social impacts—they are still overloaded with lawsuits surrounding worker rights and environmental health—but they are showing small steps in the right direction.
While bananas are not local in most northern climates, that hasn’t stopped us from eating so many of them. How do these bananas get to us? After traveling thousands of miles on ships, they arrive green to “ripening warehouses” located around the globe. They are then pumped full of ethylene gas—a chemical that they produce naturally during the ripening process, but is managed to make sure they are ripe for purchase at the perfect moment for grocery stores. There are so many hidden steps on the chain from plantation to your kitchen counter. If you want to learn more about the path of bananas around the globe, we love this in-depth piece following bananas around New York City from the New York Times, The Secret Life of the City Banana or watching this video, From Plant to Box, shot on one of the few trade union friendly plantations.
When I lived in India, I ate countless bananas of a variety of sizes, shapes, and flavors. The prevalence of monocultures make the spread of things like Panama disease so dangerous, but it’s important to remember that bananas don’t have to be so homogenous. There are bananas grown commercially in tropical corners of the US like Puerto Rico, Florida and Hawaii, and grown in small volumes in other warm places like Louisiana, California, Texas and Arizona. These bananas grown at small volumes are usually varieties other than the Cavendish,provide better ecological benefits than large monocultures, and are often more interesting and tasty!
What choices can you make?
When it comes to bananas, unless you live in an area where they are grown naturally, opting to try and purchase bananas less frequently may be the most sustainable option. Bananas travel great distances and require a lot of steps to make sure they're at the right level of ripeness once they get to your plate. This makes bananas a very high-impact food. So, when you can, opting to eat something produced locally may be a better choice.
If you buy bananas...
Make sure you eat them! Bananas make a wonderful snack and are full of potassium and other vitamins for a healthy life. Everyone has their favorite “ideal” banana ripeness, but we all know how quickly they can transition from “perfect” to “too ripe”. When bananas start to get “too ripe” for you, you can put them in a smoothie for some vegan creaminess, or you can make baked goods like banana bread! Have you tried our popular coffee chocolate chip banana bread recipe yet?
Due to the low price of bananas, while it may cost nearly double to buy organic and fair trade bananas, it’s usually only a few more cents per pound. Sometimes when money is tight, I really appreciate being able to make a few choices that make me proud of my purchases, and bananas can often be that option. While you may not be able to afford to buy everything organic and fair trade, you may be able to afford to do so when buying bananas. If you can, we recommend buying Fair Trade, and looking for bananas labeled with Equal Exchange when possible.
Things to do with the peels:
Most of us only interact with the banana “berry” or “finger” fruit in the grocery store, but other parts of the banana are used in countries where bananas grow. The leaves are used as serving dishes, the stems for a yummy drink, and the rhizomes for medicines. If you’re buying bananas from the grocery store, the place where you can get really creative is with the peel. After you eat the banana inside, you’re left with the thick peel that you can actually eat if you choose to do so! We recently came across this recipe for banana peel pulled “pork” from Max LaManna and we are pretty obsessed with it (maybe a Grounded Grub version coming soon?!). You can also soak the banana peels in water to make fertilizer for your plants, and some people say you can use banana peels to polish your shoes and your silver (if people still have silver?!). Lastly, make sure you throw that peel in the compost if you don’t eat it.
Sources:
https://hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/banana.html#Origin%20and%20Distribution
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/urban-expeditions/food/food-journeys-graphic/
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2011/04/08/us-banana-firm-hired-colombian-paramilitaries/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/nyregion/the-secret-life-of-the-banana.html
